The area of digital photography is growing rapidly. Many consumers own digital cameras, and are interested in the ability to e-mail electronic photographs to friends and family members. In addition, images from traditional cameras are increasingly being provided to end users in electronic form.
Digital cameras, scanners, and other image capture devices currently capture images and store them internally on an electronic medium of some kind. The images must then be transferred manually from the image capture device to an image manipulation or display device, such as a personal computer, via cables, diskettes, or the like. Once image files have been created and stored on a computer, they can be sent to others.
In the current state of technology, the distribution and treatment of digital photographs is handled much like that of conventional photographs. More specifically, the distribution of digital images is accomplished by point-to-point electronic transmission capabilities such as email, file transfer over LANs and WANs, or use of physical memory devices. The display of digital images must then be controlled by end users once they gain possession of the image files. For example, a user might transfer an image file into a display device where it will be displayed until the user turns it off or replaces it with another file.
The aforementioned processes for distributing digital images are cumbersome and time-consuming, since the images must be manually transferred from the image capture device for distribution, and then require manipulation by the receiver in order to be displayed. Furthermore, an end user is not able to easily search for or select digital images.